The 5.25” bay has been a long standard in computer history. It started from the 90s legacy industrial PC cases all the way to today’s Micro ATX cases. The 5.25” bay has been widely used for optical drives such as DVD and Blue-ray, or with even a single 3.5” hard drive with mobile rack. However, it is almost impossible to use a single 5.25” drive bay to create complex RAID storage until the MB996SP-6SB Full Metal 6 x 2.5” SATA Hard Drive & SSD Backplane. This is a device commercially designed for: Medical & Military systems, Media servers, IPCs, HTPC, and All-In-One computers, approved & used by Tier 1 companies.

High Capacity RAID Storage in Limited Space

Utilizing the standard 5.25” bay form factor, the compact design allows the enclosure to be used in various applications, catering to a wide audience. The MB996SP-6SB excels for use in advanced RAID applications such as building dual RAID 5 arrays or high performance 4 drives in RAID 0 plus RAID 1 array for back up, all in a single external 5.25” bay. The MB996SP-6SB is extremely useful for powerful small servers, gaming rigs, home servers or HTPC’s due to its high capacity and space saving design. It is also perfect for users who needs non-RAID JBOD storage and save different contents in different drive locations. It supports wide-range of applications which is the true value of the MB996SP-6SB.

Rock Solid Construction

Making sure your drives or expensive SSDs are in good hands and last as much as possible is carefully considered to any build and design. The MB996SP-6SB is capable of holding up in the various environments, with the heavy duty full metal construction in the entirety of the body and its smaller components. The ToughArmor's full metal design is also perfect for industrial and medical devices that may require a flammability rating as the full metal material is considered to already comply with flammability requirements.

The metal material used grants heat dissipation transfer from the hard drives to the backplane cage. Lastly, Anti-Vibration Technology (AVT) and EMI grounding are used to ensure a stable environment for the hard drives or SSD’s used, dramatically improving reliability.

Absolute Control of your 2.5” hard drive or SSD

Bringing more utility your hard drives or SSDs, LED’s are installed into the front of the mobile rack to provide individual drive status information at all times. Active Power Technology (APT) allows each LED and the cooling fan to be active only when a hard drive is inserted into the same bay of the enclosure.

A 40mm cooling fan is placed directly at the center of the rear panel, providing equivalent airflow throughout the entire cage. Depending on your needs, you may need the fan to be at a higher speed, or completely off for silent operation, and so a 3-Mode Fan Speed Control has been added to flexible in various situations.

Using the EZ Slide Micro trays makes drive interchangeability and maintenance completely hassle free. For drive security, the Eagle-hook lock system on the tray makes sure your hard drives will not eject when not needed. The trays are also designed to accommodate 7mm to 9.5mm height hard drive and SSD, creating a 2.5" hot swap bay for any standard SATA hard drives and SSDs.

With various systems to accommodate, dual 4-pin to 15-pin power adapters are included to fully accommodate all users.

Make ToughArmor On-The-GO!
With MB991U3-1SB

To access your data outside of your system or in a remote location, ToughArmor MB991U3-1SB is the way to go about. The drive tray slot of MB991U3-1SB is compatible with a variety of ToughArmor drive trays including the ToughArmor MB991, MB992, MB994, MB996 and MB998 series. This allows existing ToughArmor users to access their internal drive externally without opening up the case. It is a great tool for an individual drive diagnostic test. If you need to do a safe data erase or just simply expending system storage capacity, just remove the tray from the internal ToughArmor unit and insert it in the MB991U3-1SB to perform individual tasks externally with USB 3.0 interface. Best of all, the MB991U3-1SB uses USB bus-powered and it does not require a power adapter to operate. Simply connect the USB cable to any system and you are ready to go.

By using a high HDD density media workstation, media professions can perform highly intensive tasks while minimizing physical space displacement in their workstation such as HP Z820/Z840 and Dell 7810/7910. This concept can be achieved by using ICY DOCK’s MB998SP-B and MB996SP-6SB; they can accommodate up to 8 or 6 SSDs/HDDs in a single 5.25” device bay, respectively. This means maximum performance can be reached if RAID 0 is utilized for rendering media files in 3ds Max or Unity Pro 4. On the other hand, maximum storage capacity is also possible if each drive acted as a single volume. Limitless application can be configured with up to 8 bays of possibilities! On top of that, all of ICY DOCK’s ToughArmor come with hot swap capability. This means for individuals that need to transfer large media files from workstation to workstation, they can simply swap out the hard drive caddies or simply utilize Thunderbolt II/ III interface to transfer data off the workstation. It is quiet a handy tool!

"These two ICY DOCK products were well made and innovative. The metal housing the trays of the ToughArmor were extremely durable, and the ICYBento is a nice looking and very capable 3.5" external enclosure. We will be looking at more ICY DOCK products soon, so stay tuned!"

"The installation is painless and the latching mechanism feels secure enough to feel comfortable putting platter drives into it. If you have a use for it, the 6 Bay is certainly a solution worth a look."

"If you are looking for the most number of drives in the least amount of space, the MB996 is fantastic option. It’s sister drive, the MB992, is a pretty slick companion letting you potentially fit a removable RAID configuration in an otherwise-overlooked 3.5” slot."

"The Icy Dock MB996SP-6SB ToughArmor performs very well and for a situation where drive installation space is limited, such as a small form factor server or HTPC, these drive cages are an ideal solution. The fully metal construction is designed in such a way that it should not break in anyway while in use. Drives are firmly held in place and the LED indicator lights are very helpful to remember which slots are populated with drives. HiTechLegion is awarding the MB996SP-6SB the Gold award for the build quality"

"We were also impressed (but not surprised) with the quality of its design. Its full metal build makes the MB996SP-6SB a secure and solid device while providing good protection to the all 2.5” drives that are installed. Overall, we believe that this is an excellent option especially if you are looking for great performance and to maximize space in a small form factor, HTPC computer, or home server."

“While not 100% perfact, it's difficult to not like the Icy Dock MB996SP-6SB. The case is solid, the design is impressive, and the functions works well. The cost is a little higher than we expected, but the quality justifies the price.”